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Well I've found the book Operation Freshman by Richard Wiggan, and used it to update the section on the actual operation rather substantially; however, some of the information in it contradicts what was there before. In particular, Wiggan indicates different crash sites for the gliders than the ones that were in the article before. I'm inclined to think, though, that a full-length book on the subject is somewhat more reliable than passing mentions in other works, so I've changed the article to reflect his assertions. His entire description of what crashed where is, however, slightly convoluted so I may be wrong. Certainly, this warrants some further research. Cool3 ( talk) 01:24, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
In relation to a controversial visit to Norway in May 2009 by notorious British writer David Irving, the above assertion is attributed to Irving [1]. As the present article makes no mention of this version of the events I am requesting some background info on this. __ meco ( talk) 07:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Copied from my talkpage There's nothing about the Norwegian police arresting anyone in the Wigan book, but I perhaps see where the claim comes from. When the Germans arrived at the second crash site (to arrest survivors) they were accompanied by "two Norwegian nazis" according to Wigan (p. 67). He makes, however, no reference to these men being police officers (although it is not impossible). In any case, the two Norwegians appear to have played no role in the actual arrests, which Wigan clearly states were carried out by the Germans. I hope that helps. Cool3 (talk) 20:12, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
The article has the 2 gliders the wrong way around; the Helleland glider was the one linked to the plane that crashed, the Fylgjesdalen glider was the one that detached from the plane that subsequently made it back to Scotland. Sources are Wiggan, Norwegian sources. My uncle was 2nd pilot on the plane which crashed, so this is family history as well. Richardplantagenet ( talk) 10:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi to all in this section: Wiggan starts talking about the fates of the gliders in Ch 6 (pp 58-, the fate of the 2nd glider pp 62-) and he mentions the Helleland one first, which may have partly caused the confusion re/ which glider crashed where. On a family visit to the Helleland area in 1989 we met Trond Hovland and another local, Martin Sandstøl, who was involved in going up the mountain to the plane crash and later bringing down the crew's bodies in 1945. Another good source is Jostein Berglyd's "Operation Freshman" published by Leander & Ekholm (Stockholm) in 2006. Hope this helps, and hope the hangover goes away asap! Cheers, Richardplantagenet ( talk) 20:42, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
While I've been going through the Grouse stuff, I've come across this site - [2]. Lots of fascinating stuff, I think it's a reliable source, but welcome opinions. Ranger Steve ( talk) 18:20, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Thought I'd better explain some wholesale changes I've made to the glider crash locations. Originally, the article said the first glider crashed at a village called Fylgjesdalen overlooking Lysefjord. Fylgesdalen is a redirect to Flesland. Mears described the crash location as being at a place called Fyljesdal near Lyseford. The co-ordinates for Flesland did place it near Lyseford, so I assumed Mears was using an alternate spelling for the same place.
Today I found an interesting (and expensive so I didn't buy it) book called Striking Back by Niall Cherry in Waterstones, with a section on Freshman. It had a map that put the first glider crash nowhere near Flesland, so I thought I'd better do some checking. There is a different place called Fyljesdal that overlooks Lysefjord at these co-ordinates on google maps: 59.06033,6.619263 (copy and paste into the search bar). It isn't labeled in google maps, but is here - see this map (a PDF). I also found a good map 2/3 of the way down on this (non reliable source) Dutch blog. I'm not sure where the map's from but the crash locations match Cherry's map a lot better. I can confirm that this blog map matches the location given on the Norwegian leaflet - you can see the county borders on the blog map and they match the ones on google maps as well.
So, I've adjusted the article and the locations map accordingly. I've also found a few more refs listed below for safekeeping and other peoples opinions.
I wondered a bit about Cherry's stuff, quite a few terms like "I'm led to believe..." or "As I understand it..", but otherwise very detailed. Stephen Strattford's work is incredibly detailed and uses a lot of primary sources from the trials, which is useful. Jostein Berglyd is the author of a book on Freshman (already in the bibliography) so happily, his webpage is a reliable source (I hope). Cheers, Ranger Steve ( talk) 16:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
The doctor that would inject atmospheric air in to anyones bloodstream is an interesting person, providing that he had a name. Could anyone please tell us his name, so we can all avoid medical treatments from anyone of his descendants? I just felt groggy when writing this section. Please tell us he did not get promoted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.134.28.194 ( talk) 12:17, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
The article states that
"By September 1941 the German scientists assigned to the programme had determined how a nuclear reactor could be developed; this required significant quantities of heavy water to act as a neutron moderator to encase the uranium which would be used to provide the material for a nuclear weapon.[2] Heavy water was extremely scarce and difficult to produce, and Germany only possessed a small amount which had been produced in laboratories. Norway possessed a large stockpile which was produced by the Vemork Norsk Hydro chemical plant near the village of Rjukan, but the Norwegian government would not sell more than three gallons of heavy water a month, becoming suspicious of the sudden increase in demand for the water by the German government"
Besides the fact that there is no citation for the claim that Norway has a "large stockpile" of heavy water, that the Norwegian government would "not sell more than three gallons...a month", and that Norway was "becoming suspicious of the sudden increase in demand for the water by the German government", the most important point is that Germany only identified heavy water as a neutron moderator in 1941, when Germany had already occupied Norway in 1940, rendering the previous points moot.
Unless someone can resolve this discrepancy I'm going to remove it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lexington50 ( talk • contribs) 04:42, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Operation Freshman article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Operation Freshman has been listed as one of the Warfare good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. | ||||||||||||||||
Operation Freshman is part of the 1st Airborne Division (United Kingdom) series, a good topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so. | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
Current status: Good article |
This article is rated A-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Well I've found the book Operation Freshman by Richard Wiggan, and used it to update the section on the actual operation rather substantially; however, some of the information in it contradicts what was there before. In particular, Wiggan indicates different crash sites for the gliders than the ones that were in the article before. I'm inclined to think, though, that a full-length book on the subject is somewhat more reliable than passing mentions in other works, so I've changed the article to reflect his assertions. His entire description of what crashed where is, however, slightly convoluted so I may be wrong. Certainly, this warrants some further research. Cool3 ( talk) 01:24, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
In relation to a controversial visit to Norway in May 2009 by notorious British writer David Irving, the above assertion is attributed to Irving [1]. As the present article makes no mention of this version of the events I am requesting some background info on this. __ meco ( talk) 07:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Copied from my talkpage There's nothing about the Norwegian police arresting anyone in the Wigan book, but I perhaps see where the claim comes from. When the Germans arrived at the second crash site (to arrest survivors) they were accompanied by "two Norwegian nazis" according to Wigan (p. 67). He makes, however, no reference to these men being police officers (although it is not impossible). In any case, the two Norwegians appear to have played no role in the actual arrests, which Wigan clearly states were carried out by the Germans. I hope that helps. Cool3 (talk) 20:12, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
The article has the 2 gliders the wrong way around; the Helleland glider was the one linked to the plane that crashed, the Fylgjesdalen glider was the one that detached from the plane that subsequently made it back to Scotland. Sources are Wiggan, Norwegian sources. My uncle was 2nd pilot on the plane which crashed, so this is family history as well. Richardplantagenet ( talk) 10:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi to all in this section: Wiggan starts talking about the fates of the gliders in Ch 6 (pp 58-, the fate of the 2nd glider pp 62-) and he mentions the Helleland one first, which may have partly caused the confusion re/ which glider crashed where. On a family visit to the Helleland area in 1989 we met Trond Hovland and another local, Martin Sandstøl, who was involved in going up the mountain to the plane crash and later bringing down the crew's bodies in 1945. Another good source is Jostein Berglyd's "Operation Freshman" published by Leander & Ekholm (Stockholm) in 2006. Hope this helps, and hope the hangover goes away asap! Cheers, Richardplantagenet ( talk) 20:42, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
While I've been going through the Grouse stuff, I've come across this site - [2]. Lots of fascinating stuff, I think it's a reliable source, but welcome opinions. Ranger Steve ( talk) 18:20, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Thought I'd better explain some wholesale changes I've made to the glider crash locations. Originally, the article said the first glider crashed at a village called Fylgjesdalen overlooking Lysefjord. Fylgesdalen is a redirect to Flesland. Mears described the crash location as being at a place called Fyljesdal near Lyseford. The co-ordinates for Flesland did place it near Lyseford, so I assumed Mears was using an alternate spelling for the same place.
Today I found an interesting (and expensive so I didn't buy it) book called Striking Back by Niall Cherry in Waterstones, with a section on Freshman. It had a map that put the first glider crash nowhere near Flesland, so I thought I'd better do some checking. There is a different place called Fyljesdal that overlooks Lysefjord at these co-ordinates on google maps: 59.06033,6.619263 (copy and paste into the search bar). It isn't labeled in google maps, but is here - see this map (a PDF). I also found a good map 2/3 of the way down on this (non reliable source) Dutch blog. I'm not sure where the map's from but the crash locations match Cherry's map a lot better. I can confirm that this blog map matches the location given on the Norwegian leaflet - you can see the county borders on the blog map and they match the ones on google maps as well.
So, I've adjusted the article and the locations map accordingly. I've also found a few more refs listed below for safekeeping and other peoples opinions.
I wondered a bit about Cherry's stuff, quite a few terms like "I'm led to believe..." or "As I understand it..", but otherwise very detailed. Stephen Strattford's work is incredibly detailed and uses a lot of primary sources from the trials, which is useful. Jostein Berglyd is the author of a book on Freshman (already in the bibliography) so happily, his webpage is a reliable source (I hope). Cheers, Ranger Steve ( talk) 16:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
The doctor that would inject atmospheric air in to anyones bloodstream is an interesting person, providing that he had a name. Could anyone please tell us his name, so we can all avoid medical treatments from anyone of his descendants? I just felt groggy when writing this section. Please tell us he did not get promoted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.134.28.194 ( talk) 12:17, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
The article states that
"By September 1941 the German scientists assigned to the programme had determined how a nuclear reactor could be developed; this required significant quantities of heavy water to act as a neutron moderator to encase the uranium which would be used to provide the material for a nuclear weapon.[2] Heavy water was extremely scarce and difficult to produce, and Germany only possessed a small amount which had been produced in laboratories. Norway possessed a large stockpile which was produced by the Vemork Norsk Hydro chemical plant near the village of Rjukan, but the Norwegian government would not sell more than three gallons of heavy water a month, becoming suspicious of the sudden increase in demand for the water by the German government"
Besides the fact that there is no citation for the claim that Norway has a "large stockpile" of heavy water, that the Norwegian government would "not sell more than three gallons...a month", and that Norway was "becoming suspicious of the sudden increase in demand for the water by the German government", the most important point is that Germany only identified heavy water as a neutron moderator in 1941, when Germany had already occupied Norway in 1940, rendering the previous points moot.
Unless someone can resolve this discrepancy I'm going to remove it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lexington50 ( talk • contribs) 04:42, 26 June 2018 (UTC)